9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
J ulia was in her room, taking the pins out of her hair, when she heard the timid knock upon her door. Her first thought was that about her husband; perhaps, he had decided to get over his scruples in the end and ruled that a pleasure taken with lukewarm passion on both sides is better than none.
But no. That was unlikely. Athelstan Waite would not have knocked with such soft quietude; nor, realistically speaking, would he have changed his mind in so short a time.
Frowning, Julia smoothed over the folds of her night robe - it felt flimsy in the castle permeated with the breath of the cold sea - and went to the door.
On the threshold, she saw a somber, aged man, his hair more silver than brown.
“Father Telmen,” she was genuinely surprised. “Have you come to assist me with my evening prayers?”
The notion was ludicrous, and they both knew it, but she did have to say something.
“No, my lady, I do not think you are in dire need of a spiritual help right now.”
“I take it you think I am in need of some other help, then”. Julia stepped away, letting him in.
“Perhaps”. Upon her silent invitation, he sat down in one of the stiff dark armchairs by the fireplace. The fireplace was twinkling with the sunset light of the dying embers. “I have heard that my lord had asked your help in organizing the feast honoring the Midsummer”.
“My help is a very diplomatic way of putting it”, Julia sat down opposite him, her fingers immediately starting to drum upon the armrest. She has always had a restlessness coursing within her body with her blood. “He wants me do it. As a good lady wife, naturally I have agreed.”
“Was that the only reason?”
“Are you suspecting me of some nefarious motives?”
“Not nefarious, of course. Merely that you could be pining for the excitement of the court. Understandably, of course,” he smiled after too much of a pause.
“You overestimate the time I had spent at court, Father. The few weeks before my wedding have hardly made such an eternal impression upon my heart.”
“That is a good thing to hear. I merely wanted you to recall that His Lordship is the king’s brother, of course, but his income from these lands is not always kingly”.
“Not after the ravages of a civil war, I imagine not.”
He nodded:
“Even those who earn their living from the sea have suffered. Plenty of their menfolk had been lost to the sea-levies, the clashes of our ships and the usurper’s fleet”.
“Can the womenfolk not take up the nets in times of need, then?”
“It would hardly be seemly. Or natural.”
“The Lady is said by some captains to tread upon water in a storm, and save sailors from a certain death.”
“One of the divine three is hardly the same as a mortal woman.”
“Is starvation better?”
“I would never condemn a living soul to such a thing. But it is not as simple as you think. Many consider a woman’s presence on a ship to be a bad omen, unless she is a modest passenger or a pilgrim.”
“Do you agree with them?”
No answer, only a quietly reproachful look.
“My husband mentioned you to be a very educated man”, Julia flattered, even though she still did not know what did Lord Waite precisely mean by that. Men entered the service of the Triad from all walks of life. “Surely you are above such superstitions.”
“My lady, rules exist for a reason.”
“Yes,” she did not agree, but knew when a frank approach would get one nowhere. “But in difficult times, sometimes stark measures are needed.”
“They would never accept this.”
“Who, the fishermen or the merchants?”
“Either, my lady. Either and both.”
“Perhaps, if I am to lead by example...” Julia knew, of course, that no one example, however exalted and highborn, can repel the fog of centuries in one move. But she was only one person, if one with perfectly capable limbs and mind, and wanted to use both for good.
“Surely you don’t mean going on a fishing expedition?” He laughed softly, clearly dismissing the notion from his mind.
“Why ever not? There are pious ladies who wash the feet of lepers, when needs must. Fishing sounds to me like a far less demanding sacrifice.” She could not say, of course, that she had made this supposed sacrifice years before - it was hard to be in a crew of a small vessel and remain unacquainted with the use of nets.
“That is a preposterous comparison. My lady, I understand that your heart is good - you want to help people. But you are a chatelaine of a great castle now. The Triad has intended you for an exalted position. Do not defy Their will by lowering yourself to menial tasks.”
Too late, Julia thought. Defied already. Defiled already.
Aloud, she said only:
“I shall see what my lord husband is going to say about it. After all, is it not a wife’s duty to support her husband’s decisions?”
***
“No,” her lord husband said about it, curt and flat. “This is a madcap notion.”
“Some would say sparring with your wife with blunted swords is a notion no less madcap,” Julia parried, standing in the middle of his study.
“This is for the sake of your own safety.”
“And this is for the sake of your tenants. Our tenants. I want to help the fisherfolk who rely on us for protection, my lord.”
“You are not going to help them by staging a pageant. For this is how they are going to perceive it - a pageant, a bored lady’s trick, not some sudden revelation”.
“I am not hoping for a revelation. Merely to shift a few opinions in people’s heads. Not just theirs,” she added, coming closer. Her husband’s profile was dark and sharp against the candlelight reflected off paper. “The Fishmongers’ Guild in the town is likely to watch me just as closely, my lord. They would hardly be able to claim that buying from a fisherwoman is a folly then, if only for the fear of offending me.”
“You greatly overestimate the awe in which people hold you.”
“Do I?” Julia asked quietly. Those words stung, as they no doubt intended to do. In skirts or in trousers, in a bodice or a doublet, she had always been sensitive to being liked and admired - vain though it was. In her early life, despite the silencing danger that hung over the land then, she greatly enjoyed the company of other damsels, teaching them to ride palfreys properly and to handle hunt-hawks. On the high seas, too, she had always been the one to offer a new boy guidance or an old sea-dog help. To be so bluntly told that others held her in little regard... hurt quite a bit.
“I’m afraid so.”
“I understand that I had been a dishonest wife. But I... I hope you don’t truly think me an unpleasant person, or a woman no one could admire”.
“Of course one can admire you”. There was irritation in Athelstan Waite’s voice now. “You are - you are brave, and cheerful where most would have cried rivers of tears, and skillful at things you truly turn your mind to, not to mention handsome in your own way.”
“Am I?” She smiled a little against her own better judgement. Handsome in your own way. In her husband’s case, it was a sonnet’s worth of an effusive compliment.
“Of course. A man would have to be blind not to see all those things, and a damnable idiot besides. But you would need more than that to change the mind of our tenants or to convince the men of the guild. Guildsmen are proud as lions, for all that they most resemble weasels. You are the lady of the castle, but you are a young wife, and a foreigner besides.”
“A foreigner?”
“From a different province. For the people here, that is practically an outlander to the bone.”
“It seems like I would need someone else’s authority to support mine, then”.
“I do hope you do not mean what I suspect you might mean.”
“Where else would I turn?” Julia smiled, as she hoped, disarmingly.
“Pleadings of a distressed damsel now?” He asked levelly.
“These are no pleadings, these are facts. Whose authority would be greater to those men but yours? Besides, it would be mildly less scandalous if I were to go to sea accompanied by my husband.”
“There is a grain of truth in that,” he admitted grudgingly. “Which does not make the affair less of a folly.”
“Then you could...”
“Julia, you almost died the time you’ve accompanied me to the negotiations.” Lord Waite looked straight at her, his eyes pale and sharp as river-stones.
“It was an accident, and could have happened to me anytime I was caught in a rain in the dark.”
“You would not have been caught in a rain in the dark otherwise.”
“You saved me. And - I see you called me Julia now,” she added not without mischief. “You are making a habit of it, I see.”
Another man, it seemed, would have blushed. Athelstan Waite muttered something under his breath and said:
“Of course I call you Julia. It is your name, is it not?” He paused. “I will attempt to help you. But only if you promise that, if we do set out, you will not to stray from my side for a moment.”
“Does it mean that, en route to the pier, I am going to be riding pillion with you?”
“Yes,” he answered, deadpan. “It means that.”